THE BIG BULL BOWS OUT    by     S. PRABHAKAR                                                                                                                                        

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala who had a trail blazing successful story of wealth creation predominantly through investment in stocks directly in companies and through stock markets died at the age of 62 which according to me is neither too young nor too old enough to go.    Whatever number of years he lived, it was so productive that it is more than many lives achievement.   Starting his journey with a Rs. 5000 investment and taking it upto Rs. 40,000 crores is by no means a small achievement.    When I emphasise on Rs 40,000 crores I am not saying so purely from the money point of view, the type of investments made by him and the enterprises he started and successfully ran including launching of an Airlines, providing direct and indirect employment to thousands of people and above all bringing an investment culture in many people groping in dark in stock markets and be their role model and make them aspire to become someone like him .    What Warren Buffett has been to the World, RJ was to India – no less than that.   The most appreciable thing about him is that though he was known as Big Bull, and always referred to as dictating the stock markets, he took a great care that his name is not tarnished with any scams like Harshad Mehta and Ketan Pareek and I must say he died with his name in tact and it was always taken with lot of respect and reverence by entrepreneurs, industrialists and stock market players.   For me the best quality in him was he always showed lot of patriotism and always positive and upbeat about India.   One will get inspired and get charged whenever one listens to him.   I understand he did spend lot on charity too.

As expected the whatsapp scholars are quick to circulate many messages on his death at relatively younger age of 62 years with a presumption that if one has money he has to live for 80 or 90 years.   People always equate such incidents to greed for wealth creation and try desparately to drive the point that while running after wealth health has been neglected.   Going by the reports in public domain, by his own admission,  he was a chain smoker, consumed mouthful Gutka, and heavy boozer.  He or anybody else having vices like drinking smoking using gutka has nothing to do with wealth but simply their weakness and not having self-control.   Not doing physical exercises is laziness and not due to lack of time due to  wealth creation.  He was not a rickshaw puller or a coolie that he had to work 24 /7 to earn what he earned.   He had thousands of employees to work for him.  Many of our maid servants in our houses,   keep crying that their husbands are dead drunkards and few don't do any work also and take away the money earned by them.  They develop liver problem and die young and suffer till they die.  They didn’t run after money or they isn’t lack of time in their case.  Large number of menfolk who have jobs with fixed timings don't do any exercises and large number of home makers in India with plenty of time in hand struggle to find new TV serials to kill their leisure time but do not do any physical exercise and they try to cover that up by saying we do so much of work at home.  Any amount of work done (other than doing jhadu pocha without the help of a stick) is not a substitute to a structured physical exercise though may be bit better than not moving body at all.  

Does every successful person and wealth creator necessarily neglects his/her health.   I do not think so.   if that be so, how come many successful persons in their respective professions created huge wealth, name and fame lived for such long years - few notable mentions are JRD Tata, iconic industrialist 89 years, Pran, the busiest villain and character actor - 93 years, A Nageswara Rao, who along with NTR ruled Telugu industry for over 50 years and acted in close to 300 movies - 91 years, Ram Jethmalani, the most successful and highest paid lawyer 96 years, Kushwant Singh, the most celebrated author and writer 99 years.   The list goes on

It is true whether for RJ or those drunkards living in jhuggis no one can give them an extra second of life whether they created wealth or died pauper.   As reported  RJ said the no one can outsource health creation to others and one has to work on it personally.    Whether rich middle class or poor if one stays away from vices and take out atleast an hour to do walking, other physical exercises and take good and balanced diet, they can lead a healthy life for the number of years  of their life span - long or short.

If we believe in Karma Sidhatam, we come to earth with a count of breaths we take before we leave the world and nothing can change that.  Health depends on various factors including genetic.   Whenever we hear any rich person leaving very young like Puneet Rajkumar in his mid 40s or RJ at relatively not very old age of 62, what we should highlight is the importance of taking care of health, rather than attributing it to their greed for wealth at the cost of everything including health which surely is not true.   

S. Prabhakar

15.8.2022